Thursday, July 14, 2011

Operation Gun Stealer; Obama Sneaks Backdoor Gun Control

Timothy Birdnow

The Obama Administration is quietly using it's authority to backdown gun control.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/11/obama-s-new-gun-control-regulations-exclusive.html?om_rid=Ci42oa&om_mid=_BOG05LB8cSpV2K

Among the regulatory changes to be implemented:

1. Tougher sentencing guidelines for courts hearing cases of "straw buyers", people who buy guns to sell to those who cannot get them.

2. Forcing licenced gun shops to report anyone trying to purchase two "long arm" weapons over a five day period near the Mexican border.

3. Strengthening the electronic background check system.

Now, while these may sound reasonable to the uncritical, they all present problems both of civil liberty and of practicality. First off the areas around the Mexican border are the places where law abiding citizens most need to buy those "long arm" weapons. Considering that the U.S. has issued travel warnings for counties inside the United States because they are unsafe due to violence by illegal immigrants and drug lords, it would be natural for people to purchase guns to protect themselves. The government has made it abundantly clear that it will not protect the citizenry, so the locals must do the job themselves. But the Obama Administration doesn't seem to want to allow that, at least not without claiming those citizens are domestic terrorists.

(By the by, a search of Google failed to turn up any links to stories about that warning being issued - proof that Google edits it's search features to expunge politically embarassing news.)

If the Administration worries about straw buyers, perhaps it should look to itself; Operation Gun Runner, Fast and Furious sold more guns via straw buyers than anybody. NOW Obama wants to crack down; seems to me he should crack down on the BATF first.

And the electronic tracking and mandatory reporting is, in anybody's estimation, the first steps toward disarming the public. I hate to point to that niggling little document called the U.S. Constitution, but it states quite plainly "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" and the word infringed means, according to Mirriam-Webster;

1. to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

2. obsolete : defeat, frustrate

Origin of INFRINGEMedieval Latin infringere, from Latin, to break, crush, from in- + frangere to break

What does an electronic tracking system do but encroach upon the right? The purpose is for government to know where these firearms are at all times, which means it knows who has guns, and that information is quite helpful to those seeking to crush, break, etc. It is the equivalent of registering yourself whenever you move; the government has absolute knowledge of your whereabouts.

If these were simply common-sense regulations then Congress would be asked to pass them as law. That Obama has to sneak in the bushes, pushing these through via executive order speaks volumes.

Registration of firearms is the acknowledged first step toward confiscation. Every dictator makes confiscation of weapons a top priority.

And were this about Gabrielle Giffords Obama wouldn't care about "long arm" weapons; she could have been shot with a home-made gun just as easily, or her throat could have been slit, or she could have been hurt in innumerable other ways. A long arm weapon is the one thing that absolutely has no bearing on the Gifford case, yet Obama includes it in his gun control scheme. Why?

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association had this to say;

“If they want to do something serious about stopping crime, they can do the tried-and-true rules and go after criminals. They’re not,” says Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA. “They’re collapsing prosecutions across the U.S. The idea of putting more forms on the honest people is ridiculous. They need to start on something the criminals don’t like, which is arresting and incarcerating.”End excerpt.

It may be trite, but it is nonetheless true - guns don't kill people, people kill people. The first step government can take to reduce violent crime is to pursue the violent criminals. Taking guns out of the hands of the law-abiding means the criminals have guns (and doubtlessly will obtain them from the friendly neighborhood Operation Gun Runner agent.)

This isn't about crime, it's about making America safe for socialism.

Governments - all governments - derive their power from the force of arms (or, as the Bible calls it, the sword). It is the threat of violence that allows them to exist. Now, America was founded on the principle of the consent of the governed, which means that the majority of Americans acknowledge the right of the government to rule provided it stays within a circumscribed boundary. We accept the government's physical intimidation because that intimidation is directed primarily at evildoers and aggressors. We believe that there are natural rights inherent in our existence, rights not given to us by government but by God, and that government's job is to enforce those rights. But the Left sees all rights devolving from governments, and believes that rights are merely a mental construct, what the People believe them to be - and by the People they mean the ruling elites. Rights are malleable as silly putty. If a right is inconvenient it can be discarded. If a non-right is advantageous it can be elevated to a right. (For example, there is no right to housing; it presupposes an obligation on another, something which makes it a priviledge. A decent society may try to house all of it's citizenry, but that does not make it a basic right.) Government is supposed to stop this very thing; should a homeless man invade your property for shelter he can be kicked out by government because he is violating your basic right to possess your own property. Whose rights are violated in that scenario? Increasingly we are being told that the aggressor - the homeless man - is the victim. He is not.

And it is the threat of violence that forces the vagrant out. Government will forcibly remove him if he refuses to go, and will kill him if he resists arrest.

But the Left, and indeed all tyrants throughout history, have sought to advance their agenda through force of law i.e. through the use of violence. Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens is the exercise of violence against decent people to accomplish an ulterior motive and is an act of repression. Forcing them to register their weapons, to be held to strict account not the USE of those weapons but the mere possession is an act of repression. It threatens violence if the citizen does not give the government something it wants. And what government wants is to track the guns - and track the citizen. In the end government wants an unarmed citizenry, because those with arms can resist if government becomes to despotic. They want to hold the monopoly on the threat of force.

So naturally Obama circumvents the Congress, which is accountable to the People, in favor of a stealthy authoritarian approach to get what he wants.

Obama is like that homeless guy who is squatting on our property; we need to evict him in the next election!